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I probably wouldn't actually use a Linux-distro-now-with-BSD-kernel for regular usage, but the porting efforts tend to do a good job uncovering not-quite-portable parts of supposedly portable code, which makes everything more robust. So I like that they exist, because the fact that they work at all gives me some more confidence that portable code is working like it's supposed to.

And I personally like to keep an eye on the development. Imagine the power of the Linux packaging combined with the BSD kernel. Imagine the sound system which doesn't suck. Imagine the storage, if supported at all, crunching data at half the usual rate. Imagine the unaccelerated graphical interface......I digress. But it is still interesting.

As a longtime FreeBSD user, I am wondering why bother? I can run Linux binaries through the built-in compatibility layer since at least 7.x

How is using the FreeBSD kernel with the GNU userland any better than running the GNU binaries directly on a full FreeBSD system? If this is to improve "desktop" usability, how does this compare to something like the PC-BSD distribution of FreeBSD?

I would imagine various privilege escalation attacks are microscopically more complicated, at least for skript kiddies and automated systems, on a mixed system. Security via obscurity should never be your only line of defense, but it is "a" line of defense.

I used arch and I am still using FreeBSD. Pacman can yield some nasty surprise if you have a seldom powered up computer. Arch really needs a tight update schedule or you might have missed a step that breaks upgrading. If you want a BSD kernel and gnu tools, just install them from ports.

My only experience with Arch Linux was back in 0.7 and then it wasn't good. But that doesn't mean much now so I can't comment for how Arch work now. I tried Chakra Linux during early 2012 but I don't remember if there was anything else wrong with it except the bundle system for GTK-applications. Applications? =P

Same here. As somebody who does not use ZFS, I see more benefit in using a Linux kernel than a *BSD one. But I greatly prefer the FreeBSD userland over any GNU userland, which has firmly kept me in the Beastie camp.

I'm not sure it is anymore. The prevalance of the GNU userland via GNU/Linux has effectly made it the standard. I gave up using ksh a decade ago because of the number of scripts etc that required bash's features, even when supposedly written for generic Bourne.

Now, of course, it'd be easy to argue that more Unixes implement something closer to BSD than GNU, but the counter argument to that is that GNU/Linux seems to be, by the far, the most c

Some people spend their time playing golf, others spend it arguing on the interwebs. None of them are useful but it is also unlikely that those who do so will be willing to do something else unless you pay them to.This dude spent his time doing something way more useful than most other people but you call it wasted time.As long as people participates in sports, watch TV or go to the cinema I find it a bit odd to call this a waste of time.

You're right, it's not my time and I'm not going to claim to desire to dictate how they spend theirs.

I just don't see the value proposition in spending time on this versus spending the time perfecting Arch Linux. I'm not an Arch user, though I'm interested in it. Right now I tend to mainly use Debian, Mint, and FreeBSD. What I'm sure of is that there are bugs and usability issues in Arch that this effort could have been used to address.

I can appreciate their efforts from a technical standpoint, but in the e

I just don't see the value proposition in spending time on this versus spending the time perfecting Arch Linux. I'm not an Arch user, though I'm interested in it. Right now I tend to mainly use Debian, Mint, and FreeBSD. What I'm sure of is that there are bugs and usability issues in Arch that this effort could have been used to address.

I didn't read the article (yet... yeah I know) but I can already come up with an answer - maybe this guy's expertise/interest is in low level kernel details that would crop up swapping kernels, instead of in bugs/usability issues which sound UI or user-mode related to me. It's like asking a compiler internals person to fix GNOME 3. Come on, not every developer and their particular skillset is 100% interchangeable with the area that you think needs attention.

I'm quite sure they could find some low level mess that needs attention.. There is plenty out there.. Honestly, even if kernel code is what they dream of at night then spending their time testing, validating, and patching problems in either or both of the Linux and FreeBSD kernels would be far more beneficial to the entire FOSS ecosystem than another GNU distro port using the FreeBSD kernel.

Again, they can spend their time however they want. I just think it's a shame it wasn't spent doing something more ben

>I can appreciate their efforts from a technical standpoint, but in the end they used that time to create a technical novelty that in reality will not see a long term use nor large scale adoption. A sharper and more polished Arch experience would have a tremendously larger impact compared to this.

Personally, I don't see the point to having a Linux userland with a FreeBSD kernel or vice versa. I'd much rather have a stable system with wide adoption (either Linux or FreeBSD, not some unholy hybrid), but I like the fact that this exists anyway. In the free and open source software world, anyone with interest and time on their hands can do what they want to do. This is in opposition to the closed model where a few decision makers are trying to maximize profit given their resources.

FOSS works a lot like darwinian evolution. A lot of random mutations occur and most do not survive. A few, however, do survive and become widespread and we are better off for it. Don't think of it as wasted effort, think of it as part of the process.

I'm wondering how they'll go about the init system now that Arch has decided to move to systemd and drop support for initscripts. Last I heard systemd uses a lot of Linux specific features and cannot easily be ported to a *BSD.

LOL. I use Arch Linux, but forcing everyone to switch to systemd has me looking at other distros. Thinking Lubuntu might be the way to go. Read that Ubuntu is going to a rolling release starting in version 14.

The Arch people get pretty nasty if you question their decisions. I asked why they made this move to systemd, and got "you're an ignoramus if you don't understand" kind of responses. Maybe they don't have a good reason? And maybe that's because there isn't a good reason to switch to systemd? Th

That's more explanation than I managed to turn up poking around on the Arch website and asking in the forums. Thanks. Yet I don't buy it. Also, that the discussion isn't more prominent shows another problem: documentation. Would've been nice to provide a list of common initscripts way of doing things with systemd equivalents, to ease the transition.

For instance, took a bit of time to realize that/var/log/messages was no longer used to hold logs, then hunt around to find out what systemd does instead

Headline makes it sound like Linux has been ported to BSD. Ten years ago I would have said "That doesn't make any sense," but then User Mode Linux came along (where other operating systems, rather than just hardware, become the port platform target). If you RTFA, though, this does not involve User Mode Linux. It doesn't involve any Linux at all, so it should be left out of the name; it should be called Arch GNU/BSD.

To put it another way, when you run a certain multimedia player on your NOT-AN-XBOX hardware, you might call that app XBMC. You don't (ever) call it X Box Multimedia Consoleorwhateverthelastwordis, because there's no XBox involved.

Another analogy (because this is Slashdot where we love such things). I once heard a funny story about an English man who had dark skin, being called an "African-American" by some PC-non-thinker. The dunce would call him African-American, and the English dude would say, "No, I'm not American. I wasn't born in American, I don't live in America, I've never been there. Don't call me American," and the PC guy would think "but you're black, except I'm not allowed to label a person 'black' because the pc police say I have to blindly search-and-replace 'black' with 'African American' so..." and then he'd repeat the mistake.

That is what you're doing when you call this project "Linux." You sound just as dumb as the "You're African-American" dolt. It's not Linux, just as the black Englishman is not an African-American.

Even better are all the white folks I've met in America who were born in Africa (South Africa, mostly).

They tend to be confused why certain people look at them oddly when they claim the title of African-American, even though it much more applies to them than to someone who happens to have dark skin and has no known relations in Africa...

So yeah, Steve Nash is technically the only "African-American" currently playing for the Lakers, using the "American" part loosely...

African-American is problematic.The term really denotes descendants of American slaves. But what if you are a descendant of a French slave in Paris just visiting USA? Are you African-French? And how about the descendants of French colonists in a former colony? Do these countries have French-Africans and African-Africans?

In December I had the opportunity to try Arch out while attempting to get Xen working on a newly built pc. The Xen experiment failed but I did find myself liking the way Arch did things enough to install it on a SD card for my laptop just a week ago, replacing a FreeBSD 8 install. I really keep it there mostly for emergencies so perhaps I'll wipe and reinstall with this new BSD variant. But I'll still be keeping 9.1 on my desktop, at least for now.

"The Arch Linux distribution has been modified to run off the FreeBSD 9.0 kernel as an alternative to using Linux. The developer of Arch BSD explained his reasoning as enjoying FreeBSD while also liking the Arch Linux philosophy of a 'fast, lightweight, optimized distro,' so he sought to combine the two operating systems to have FreeBSD at its core while being encircled by Arch. The Arch BSD initiative is similar to Debian GNU/kFreeBSD."

When googling for some Linux answers there often comes up rather insightful posts from the Arch Linux bulletin board. I don't use the distro myself, but I see the smart people in their community as a positive thing.